<\/span>More<\/div>\nThis portion of the park faces the west fa\u00e7ade of the 18th century mansion and seems to be enclosed by a broad walkway of yews which in the 19th century were profiled in the shape of cut pyramids.
\nThe terminal part shaped like an exedra, up to the \u201830s hosted the gigantic statue of Adonis, produced around 1602 by the sculptor from Como, Marco Antonio Prestinari (deceased in 1621) and today kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The work, an exuberant male nude, was achieved by the artists who drew inspiration from the stance of the \u201cVenus Urania\u201d sculpted around 1575 by Giambologna (today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna), and is one of the first works documented by Prestinari, before his talent was discovered by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, for whom the sculptor did a great number of portraits of \u201cSibyls and Prophets.\u201d The sculpture was placed in the \u201cNature Theatre\u201d only after 1720. In fact, records had previously described its position in an elevated position, right next to the \u201cWater Tower\u201d and therefore, on the opposite side of the complex. This location was due to the myth of Adonis, who was attacked to death by a wild boar and restored to life through the tears of the goddess Aphrodite who was in love with him, and who was thus assimilated to the waters of the Nymphaeum in Lainate. This would be confirmed also by the Latin inscription found at the base of the sculpture. \u201cAdonis pene redivivus \/ Pirrhi vicecomitis borromaei largitate<\/em>,\u201d according to which it was precisely the patronage of Pirro I Visconti Borromeo (and therefore the \u201ctears of his fountains\u201d) that had brought to life the unfortunate hero. Undoubtedly, for Pirro, afflicted by gout and nearing death (in 1604), the waters of the Nymphaeum must have really had a \u201ccurative\u201d value and the fame obtained with the building of the complex, should have ensured for him eternal life in the memoirs of Lainate.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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